Outrage is the Universal Parasite
There are some people in the world who you must conclude are smart: e.g. Elon Musk, who is the greatest industrialist of our generation; or Bill Ackman, who is a billionaire hedge fund manager. But no matter how smart someone is, one thing always makes them stupid.
Here's an example of a Bill Ackman tweet that exhibits the kind of gullibility most held by a first time tourist to NYC. The cab drivers there are notorious scamsters, and while it might benefit one to exaggerate something like that, it surely does not benefit Bill Ackman to make himself look like an idiot.
Bill Ackman @BillAckman I took an @Uber today and for the first time was offered a NYC yellow cab. I thought good for Uber supporting the cabbies. I asked the driver about his experience with Uber and he surprised me by saying it was bad.
He explained that even when the passenger agreed to pay a tip to the driver on the Uber app, the driver did not receive a tip and Uber kept the tip for itself.
I said that this could not be true so he asked me to test it. When the ride finished I added a $5.00 tip. His screen showed that I paid no tip.
The driver was right. In short, Uber is massively increasing its margins and profits in NYC by ripping off NYC cab drivers.
I texted @dkhos Dara from Uber midday today and sent this photo of the driver’s screen. He did not respond. I like Dara, but this is really bad. I can only assume that Dara is unaware of this.
Uber needs to immediately return the stolen funds with interest to the NYC taxi drivers and to other drivers in any other markets where they are doing the same and they should deeply apologize. And Uber should restate its earnings to reflect this overstatement of margins and profits.
This needs to happen now. @ericadamsfornyc Mayor Adams, I am sure agrees.
May 22, 2024[1]
As you can probably imagine, Uber wasn't stealing from cabbies, but the cabbies were content to steal from gullible passengers. But Bill Ackman is really smart: you don't get to be good at doing what he does without being intelligent.
So why did he fall for it? It's because outrage is a memetic parasite. The parasite is not agentic. It's merely a parasite doing things that reward its existence: not even because it wants to be rewarded but because the versions of it that didn't respond to this didn't survive.
Lots of smart people are killed by things with no intelligence. Newton, Hooke, and Descartes died of pneumonia, not because pneumonia was the cost to pay for some of their studies but just because pneumonia was a thing that happened to people.
And so, just like respiratory viruses and bacteria, outrage can also infect you. Bill Ackman just got sick, and he was quite contagious to many.
Related
References
- ↑ Bill Ackman [@BillAckman] (May 22, 2024). "I took an @Uber today and for the first time was offered a NYC yellow cab. I thought good for Uber supporting the cabbies. I asked the driver about his experience with Uber and he surprised me by saying it was bad. He explained that even when the passenger agreed to pay a tip to the driver on the Uber app, the driver did not receive a tip and Uber kept the tip for itself. I said that this could not be true so he asked me to test it. When the ride finished I added a $5.00 tip. His screen showed that I paid no tip. The driver was right. In short, Uber is massively increasing its margins and profits in NYC by ripping off NYC cab drivers. I texted @dkhos Dara from Uber midday today and sent this photo of the driver's screen. He did not respond. I like Dara, but this is really bad. I can only assume that Dara is unaware of this. Uber needs to immediately return the stolen funds with interest to the NYC taxi drivers and to other drivers in any other markets where they are doing the same and they should deeply apologize. And Uber should restate its earnings to reflect this overstatement of margins and profits. This needs to happen now. @ericadamsfornyc Mayor Adams, I am sure agrees" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
